Elephant9 With Terje Rypdal — Catching Fire

Catching Fire is a live recording of a collaboration between two Norwegian greats- fusion/ prog trio Elephant9, and legendary jazz guitarist/ composer Terje Rypdal. It’s very much in the mode of live albums of the 1970s from key prog/ fusion bands- with it offering up wonderfully shifting, varied and at points decidedly fired-up selection of tracks.

The album comes as either a two-vinyl release or a CD- I’m reviewing the latter of these. The disc comes presented in panel digipak- on its front cover we two complex shapes set against an orange-to-blue backdrop, and inside we find a two-page write-up about the collaboration/ recording.

The concert recording dates from 2017 in Oslo, and features six tracks. These have runtimes between four and twenty-two minutes.  The whole thing has been mastered to truly capture the raw & often fired-up energy of the four players.

We open with the longest track here “I Cover The Mountain Top” which rolls in at seventeen seconds over the twenty-two-minute mark. It moves from its fading-in early Tangerine Dream-like synths moodiness, through to drifting and rising organ tones touched first by ambient guitar tone then baying and wailing rock soloing. Moving on to dense ‘n’ bounding blends of battering ‘n’ smashing drum work, funking organ tones, and smoking blues-rock-fed guitar work. It's a great opener, really giving us a good old taste of what we can expect from the rest of the record.

As we move on there is “Psychedelic Backfire” which starts out with smarting and snapping drum work, rolling and baying proto-metal chugs, and warbling organ rises. Before shifting into blow-out/feedback grooving blues rock stomper- that you can feel in both your bones and guts.

The album plays in a fine bounding and roasting form with “Skink” which is all about rapid & amped-up organ runs, crushing ‘n’ smashing drum work, crudely smoking guitar roll, blunt bass line bound, and spacy synth wails ‘n’ bays.

As an album, Catching Fire feels like( at points) it’s going to just do that- smoking out your stereo.  If you are after the no-nonsense, raw, and rapidly shifting live record, with all the fired-up spirit & passion of those 70’s records- this is most certainly for you.